If I Should Die Before I Wake
by Katarina99
Summary: Alex Rider is a high level MI6 agent with no future and very little present to speak of.  Ian Johnson is a well respected soldier in the SAS who's past is about to catch up to him. How far will Ian go to bury Alex and his MI6 past forever?
1. Chapter 1

"This is going to sound really clichéd, but it's too quiet." Lizard muttered, finger twitching towards the trigger of his gun as they swung around a corner, aiming around the room before asserting that the room was clear.

"Cool it Liz, you're freaking me out." Albatross muttered back, swinging into the next room before softly calling out a "Clear" to the group that was surely a few feet behind them. Except there was no answering echo of copy, rodger, or clear. Albatross and Lizard stared at each other for a moment before turning around quickly and moving their guns up to chest level of-

"Shit Panther, you scared the crap out of us." Lizard breathed, glaring at the smaller man and glancing around a bit paranoid. "Where are Seal and Shrew, I thought they were with you?"

"They were, but I sent them back five minutes ago, you know how they are, Seal almost knocked Shrew through a wall before I told them to get out of here." Panther said, rolling his eyes and bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet, muscles tense as if ready to run at any second.

Albatross huffed, "You'd think they'd know better during a mission, lord, how those two managed to get into the SAS I'll never know." They shared a comfortable moment before looking around them warily.

"I don't like this." Panther murmured nervously, "I don't like this one bit."

Lizard might have responded with an affirmative, Albatross might have told both of them to knock it off, or another group may have joined them in glancing around afraid to move and afraid not to but at that moment a door flung open causing them all to fling their guns up and pivot towards it.

A youngish man stumbled out of it, eyes wildly moving around the room, arms thrown up in surrender, "69683542805." He gasped out before collapsing, Panther quickly snagging him out of the air before he hit the ground, quietly swearing when he noticed the man's condition.

"Liz, get HQ on radio, I can't remember whether that was the right string of nu-"

"It was." Panther said shortly, taking the man's pulse and swearing again. "Stay with me Be- Fox. Come on man, stay with me."

"Fox? Fox from K-Unit? MI6 Fox?" Lizard gaped, trying to find any resemblance between the man he had met at training and the bloody mess lying on the ground.

"Yeah; now shut the fuck up and get me that med evac." Panther growled, ripping the wounded man's shirt and pushing it against the man's stomach, trying to stop the bleeding there.

Suddenly Fox opened his eyes, and although still looking completely out of it managed to focus on Panther. He shook his head as if trying to clear it, "Al?" he groaned, trying to sit up. Panther pushed him back down.

"Albatross is over there Fox, I'm Panther. We're going to get you out of here, hang tight okay?"

Fox merely continued to try to pull himself up, "No, Alex. Alex Rider. I know you are, you can't lie to me Al."

"Fox, calm down you're delusional, you've been shot I need you to lie back and relax until the med team gets here."

"God damn it Alex you know me well enough to know that won't work! This isn't funny, where the hell have you been?" Just then the medics ran in, pulling him onto a stretcher despite his weak attempts to struggle against them.

Panther watched as he was loaded onto the helicopter with a sigh, walking out of the building towards where his team was standing, gathering up equipment or starting up vehicles. Albatross came up behind him, "You knew that Fox wasn't talking about me when he said Al didn't you?"

Panther sighed again and ran a hand through his too short hair, "Yeah, I did."

"And that Alex Rider guy he was talking about, you know him too?" he asked curiously, motioning to his team mates that he would be over in a minute.

"Yeah, I did. A long time ago." Panther replied, suddenly looking incredibly young as he watched the evac helicopter disappear.

Albatross stood awkwardly next to him for a moment before clapping him on the shoulder and smiling as best he could, "Your unit's waiting on you, you should probably head out."

He nodded and started towards the three other men sitting in a vehicle a few yards away from Albatross's unit. "Hey Panther!" the man called after his friend who turned slightly towards him, "One more success to go on that spotless record eh?" This drew out a small smile from the soldier as he started walking towards his unit again.

"Yeah, one more for the record." Ian Johnson murmured as he rejoined his unit who were already yelling at him to, "Get over here before our clothes go out of style Pan!" and "Oh is the kitty-cat taking time out of his busy schedule to come sit with his unit?"

He allowed himself a small hidden smile, Alex Rider had never been able to gain easy acceptance like this, but then Ian Johnson always had been the lucky one.


	2. Chapter 2

Ian was staring at the ceiling of his unit's trying to put Ben from his mind, it was useless to think about the man, that part of his life was over and done with, he had no place in Ben's life anymore. It hurt of course, how could it not, the older spy had become something of a big brother to him when they were paired up on missions and he had spent more than a few sleepless nights in Ben's apartment after a particularly nasty mission when he didn't want to wake Jack with his nightmares. Perhaps if he just ducked into the hospital for a moment to check on him...no! He couldn't allow himself to fall into this again, if he went MI6 would find him and Ian Johnson, Panther, would die. He couldn't do that to his team mates just to go back to a life he hated more than anything,it wasn't fair to anyone involved.

Ian closed his eyes and listened to his unit breathing; it was nights like this that he thanked God for the fact that he wasn't alone anymore, he had a _family _now. Sure, they were a weird, disjointed, warring family but they looked after each other. He wasn't a tag along or the teenage super spy who everyone depended on, he was a member of a team who he worked with, not for and that in itself was too much to give up just to visit an old friend in the hospital.

"Pan?" a tired voice groaned and he realized at some point he had gotten up and was pacing around the tent. Lemur sat up on his cot and rubbed his eyes blearily, "What's wrong?"

Ian simply smiled reassuringly at the man, "Nothing, just wondering how Fox is."

"Fox went to MI6 before you even thought about joining the SAS, seriously Panther, what's going on?" Owl had woken up and was staring at him calculatingly before leaning over and shaking Falcon.

"No don't-come on guys seriously I'm fine-" Ian tried but was met by two flat disbelieving stares before Owl went back to waking up their fourth teammate.

"Wha? What's goin' on?" Falcon slurred, managing to halfway pull himself out of his blankets and glance around in confusion.

"Panther's acting weird again." Lemur said, grinning at Ian despite his angry glare. Falcon shook his head a few times in an attempt to wake up before looking up at Ian in annoyance, "Panther I swear to God, we've put up with the secrets, we've put up with the weird nightmares and the random flashbacks, we've been about as supportive as you can expect three 25 year old men with little to no patience to be but we're getting really sick of it. A couple of months ago Lemur, Owl, and I agreed that we would let you keep all your secrets unless you started acting weird again and we started worrying about your safety or the safety of the unit. I'm not sure what the hell's going on here, but if Lemur thinks it's weird then I'm guessing it's pretty effing weird. So spill. What's going on, what's with the nightmares, why don't you visit anyone when we go on leave, and what in the world is going on with you and the Sergeant?"

There was a moment of silence before, "Wow that was pretty good for just having woken up."

"Shut up Lemur!" Falcon growled, never taking his eyes off of Ian who was resisting the urge to shift side to side uncomfortably; sometimes Falcon reminded him far too much of another unit leader he had had so long ago.

"It's not that I don't want to tell you-"

"Then tell us! We're your unit, you don't need to hide from us Panther!" Owl ground out, sounding more frustrated than Ian had ever heard him.

"Yeah! I mean, you know about my family and all the times that I-"

"I guarantee we don't need to hear any of those stories again Lemur." Falcon barked angrily, looking on the verge of losing his temper with their childish teammate for the thousandth time. "No more interruptions! Sit down and tell us what's going on Panther."

Ian sighed, they were going to absolutely kill him, "Classified."

There was a moment of silence, his entire team was staring at him as if frozen and then-

"I knew it!" Owl was grinning smugly and Falcon and Lemur groaned angrily while Lemur mumbled something about losing ten pounds on that bloody bet.

Ian's stared at them in complete confusion, "What?"

"You were in MI6 before this!" Owl crowed triumphantly, "Only agents give that ridiculous response to anything they don't want to answer!"

"And that explains how you know Fox and why you're so worried about him." Lemur said proudly.

"And the nightmares, the flashbacks, and the freakish ability to sneak up on us." Falcon agreed, nodding happily.

Ian finally regained control of his emotions for long enough to gasp out, "You got all of that from one word?"

They all snorted simultaneously, "We live with you for most of the year Panther, you pick up some observation skills." Owl said flatly.

"Well Fox didn't know that you switched to the SAS if what Lizard was saying is true, so you obviously did something stupid and inadvisable. Us figuring out what weird mixed up planet you come from doesn't change the fact that you're telling us exactly what's going on." Falcon said calmly, moving towards the window that Ian had been eyeing and shutting it with the air of a man who had been forced to block off his fleeing team mate's escape for than a few times.

Ian glanced at the door, minutely shifting his stance and readying himself to bolt but Lemur easily settled himself in front of the door, hazel eyes lined with amusement, "Nice try Pan, but so not happening."

Ian tried one more time, "Guys please, not only is it illegal for me to tell you anything, but I really don't want to talk about it. It's over and I don't want to think about it anymore."

They all raised their eyebrows and Falcon shook his head, "Not going to work Panther, sorry."

Ian sighed and put his head in his hands, "Alright..."


	3. Chapter 3

_Ian sighed and put his head in his hands, "Alright..."_

"I'm not really sure where to start... I guess it all started with my uncle's d-"

Suddenly the door swung open, hitting Lemur in the back and sending him have stumbling half running away from the doorway with a howl of pain which cut off abruptly when he noticed who was at the door. All four of them jumped to attention, hoping to God that the man wasn't in a bad mood.

"Falcon!" the man barked, causing Falcon to quickly step forward and the rest of them to let out an inaudible breath of relief. The man stepped closer to Falcon, anger practically radiating off of him, "Falcon I don't know what your unit has done this time, but whatever it is has caused me a mess of MI6 proportions. Apparently something about your last assignment has MI6 spooked enough to pull rank, withdraw 6 units from their current assignment in Yemen, send them back here, and place two agents in _my _camp despite my best efforts to prevent it. Since you're at fault for this I'm sure you wouldn't mind us hauling two extra cots in here for the agents? One of the units will be taking your beds."

Falcon opened and closed his mouth for a moment before saying rather faintly, "But sir, where will we sleep?"

The Sergeant grinned evilly, "You'll be sleeping on the floor. Of course if the other unit decides that it's too cramped with all of you on the floor... well you have sleeping bags, I'm sure this would be a wonderful opportunity to practice your shelter building skills."

Falcon nodded, looking resigned to their fate and stepped back into line with his teammates. Ian suddenly had a horrible thought, "Sergeant, may I have a word?"

The man gave him a searching glare before jerking his head towards the door, "Let's take a walk Panther." Ian ran out the door after him, but not before turning and giving his teammates a taunting grin; he then slammed the door quickly behind him to keep one of Owl's boots from hitting him.

* * *

><p>He and the Sergeant walked a safe distance away from the cabins before the taller man turned towards Ian, "What's going on Cub?"<p>

Ian flinched slightly, "It's Panther now sir, Cub was killed on a mission eleven months ago."

The Sergeant chuckled fondly, "You'll always be Cub to me Alex, get used to it."

Ian glared at the Sergeant angrily, "Alex died the same day as Cub Adrian, you know that." Ian kicked a rock into the underbrush as hard as possible, wherever he went he couldn't get rid of who he once was.

Adrian simply smiled at him, "We're alone kid, relax for two minutes would you? You're having a casual conversation with an old friend, quit acting like such a paranoid little shit and talk to me like a normal person."

Ian fidgeted for a second, looking around as if sure that enemies were about to burst from the trees. Adrian rolled his eyes and gave it up as a lost cause, "What did you want to talk to me about Cub?"

Ian spared him one more glare before replying, "It's Ben isn't it? The agent? And knowing my luck K-Unit's coming back as well?"

The other man sighed, "I tried to stop it."

"I know. MI6 just has a talent for ruining everything they come in contact with. They're going to kill me you know that? They trusted me and I trusted them, we put our lives in each others hands and you don't mess with trust like that."

Adrian nodded solemnly, "For he who sheds his blood with me this day shall be my brother." He quoted.

Ian stopped mid-step and stared at him for a moment unblinking then almost doubled over, howling with laughter. "What?" demanded Adrian, feeling the urge to slip back into his Sergeant face.

"Sergeant Wyss, the Bane of Brecon Beacons, the terror of recruits everywhere, the man responsible for reducing ten grown men to blubbering messes, just quoted Shakespeare to me!" Ian gasped through his laughter, finally managing to compose himself, wiping tears from his eyes and catching his breath.

"If you're quite done, I've assigned K-Unit to share your unit's hut."

Ian suddenly went pale, "Sir, that's bordering on cruel and unusual punishment, my unit is protective enough without adding in K-Unit to make them angry about me having another unit, and K-Unit's going to react exactly the same! And have you even considered Ben? I'm afraid of Ben's temper on a good day let alone with him thinking for eleven months that I'm dead!"

Adrian just stared at him dismissively, "I don't want to have to deal with a tug-of-war between N-Unit and K-Unit every day about which unit you belong in and you know Fox better than anyone, I'm sure you'll figure something out." Ian just stood there looking like a man being led to his execution. "Look Cub, think about it like this; I had to find a way to cheer you up almost every morning for weeks after your "death" because you were missing the men who had stopped being unneeded back up and started being brothers and the man who might as well be your brother. You're not losing anything this time, you're getting something back."

Ian nodded shakily, "But what if they hate me for doing this to them? What if Owl, Falcon, and Lemur don't want to be in a unit with me anymore because I lied to them about who I was?"

Adrian shook his head, "Cub listen to me, I've seen you interact with N-Unit and you're not getting rid of them that easily. As for K-Unit and Ben... how would you react if you thought one of them was dead and then they popped back up alive and well, stronger than before and out of the reach of MI6?"

Ian thought for a moment then nodded slowly, "I'd be pissed as all hell for a couple of minutes then I wouldn't let them out of my sights again."

Adrian nodded with a slight smile, "It's a two way street, they're probably going to react the exact same way. Now let's get you back to your unit before they try coming after us."

Ian nodded and allowed himself to be led back to the hut; his talk with Adrian had slightly reassured him but he was still on guard, after all, paranoia was what had kept him alive all this time.


	4. Chapter 4

Ian walked into the hut, glancing around suspiciously at the lack of movement from inside. After a couple of moments and several checks of the undersides of beds, the ceiling, and even inside his teammates' bags he determined that they must have been sent off on some errand or another and it would be safe to relax for a couple of minutes.

He threw himself onto his cot, groaning a bit at how uncomfortable it was before letting his mind wander, something he usually didn't partake in- it was too dangerous to let his guard down. His eyes were just starting to close when the door slammed open and he rolled off of the bed, hit the floor and rolled under, heaving his bad to the other side so that it hid him from the rest of the room.

A man too tall to be any of his teammates walked in and Ian felt his heartbeat quicken, rationally, he knew that it was probably someone looking for his unit, perfectly harmless and absolutely ridiculous to be afraid of. But then it could also be an enemy who had figured out his location and had been sent to kill him. Slowly and silently he slid one of guns out of it's hiding place in the frame of the cot- after all it never hurt to be cautious.

The man looked around for a minute and threw himself down on one of the cots with a sigh of exhaustion and Ian realized for the first time that there were two extra cots in the room, Adrian hadn't mentioned that the unwanted visitors were arriving today. Cursing his friend in his mind, he craned his neck a bit, trying to catch a glimpse of the man's face, torn between hoping that it was Ben or one of K-Unit and praying that it was the other, unknown agent. Suddenly the man's breathing faltered before returning to normal and Ian swore under his breath; somehow the man had realized he was here. He barely had time to prepare himself before the bag was thrown backwards and he was pulled from his hiding place.

He was pulled up by his shirt, level with flashing green eyes and an angular face framed by ragged brown hair- he had never seen the man in his life; unfortunately, for Ian, while the man had been pulling him up he had also leveled a Glock with his forehead.

Had Ian been any other person he probably would have ceased fighting the minute he saw the Glock aimed at his head and the glint in the man who held it's eyes that said he wouldn't hesitate to fire. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, Ian was not that person. With a simple twist of his hand and an elbow to the chest he found himself out of the man's grip and falling towards the ground, but by this point he had the advantage- his own gun was pointed steadily at his assailant and he was in the perfect position to swing his legs out and knock the man off of his feet and possibly grappling the gun away from him.

Just then the door swung open again, "Hey Evans did you grab the-" Whoever it was stopped talking abruptly but neither Ian nor Evans seemed willing to look away from the man the were pointing their gun at.

Then there was a chocked, "Alex?" Ian wanted desperately to look up but his instincts wouldn't let him look away from the gun pointed at his head. A hand pushed the gun down and Evans was shoved backwards, much to the man's protest. Ian looked up at the newcomer and slowly put his gun down and stood up; he and Ben stared at each other for a moment before suddenly there was a fist flying at his face. Ian had expected many things- this wasn't one of them. Too shocked to react, the fist slammed into his face sending him flying him back towards the ground, clutching his nose which was now dripping blood.

He lay there for a moment trying to stop the blood flow, but he couldn't have been on the ground more than thirty seconds before he was heaved to his feet and pulled into a tight embrace.

"You're an idiot." Ben murmured into his hair, squeezing him closer, "Such a goddamn idiot."

"Sorry." Ian said, voice muffled by his friend's chest, "I couldn't help it, it just-"

"If you value my sanity you'll shutup, I honestly don't think I could handle hearing exactly what happened because I might kill you. No, you know what? I'll give you to Wolf, that would be much worse." Ben ground out, still clutching him tightly much to Ian's discomfort.

"Ben do you think you could-"

"No." And that was that. Ben kept a hold of him for a few more minutes before slowly releasing him and staring at him appraisingly before slapping the back of his head.

"Ow! What was that for?" Ian whined holding the back of his head and glaring at the older man.  
>Ben raised an eyebrow, "Getting yourself captured as a distraction, setting off that bomb, getting shot, pretending to die in my arms-"<p>

"Okay that one's not fair I actually thought I was dying, you have no idea how shocking it was to wake up after that."

Ben continued as if he hadn't said anything, "Not telling me you were alive, not telling K-Unit you were alive, acting like I was an idiot who couldn't recognize you on that last mission, pointing a gun at Evans, joining the SAS, not telling me you were alive-"

"You said that one twice."

"I thought it needed to be emphasized."

They looked at each other for a moment before bursting out laughing, "It's good to have you back Al."  
>For the first time in eleven months Alex Rider, not Ian Johnson grinned happily, "It's good to be back."<p> 


	5. Chapter 5

Alex was ready to start running the second that Ben and Evans became unwary enough to give him an opportunity. It wasn't that he wasn't happy to see his friend or that he was afraid of the consequences that came with being Alex Rider again; he just really didn't think he could handle N-Unit and K-Unit at the same time and chances were that they would walk up together. His original plan had been to inform his team of his previous identity sometime today, get Ben alone when he arrived, and then hide for a day or two so he would have level headed allies when he revealed himself to K-Unit (most specifically Wolf). Unfortunately, that plan had gone spectacularly wrong in a way only one his plans could and now he was just hoping he could escape the combined wrath of eight fully trained, overprotective soldiers.

He was right in the middle of laughing at one of the stories Ben was telling Evans when he saw his opportunity, both of them were in stitches, the door was unblocked and the pathway to his exit was clear. He launched himself forward, pulled open the door and darted out- only to knock into someone and send them flying to the ground.

"Ow! Jesus Panther, what's wrong with you?" Falcon growled, easily flipping his smaller teammate off of him and scrambling to his feet before heaving Alex up after him.

"Way to make a first impression short stuff." Lemur snickered, leaning against the wall of the hut and nodding his head to the right, "Panther, meet K-Unit, K-Unit, our other teammate, Panther."

Alex froze and hoped that their slightly obscured view of him, the code name, and his buzzed hair was enough to stop them from recognizing him immediately.

"Nice to meet you," Snake said, smiling calmly as ever, extending a hand to him, "I'm Snake, this is Eagle, Viper, and Wolf."

Alex grasped his old friend's hand and shook it as briefly as possible before letting go, nodding in greeting towards the rest of K-Unit and starting off in the opposite direction.

"Wait." Alex froze, swearing profusely in his mind, he had never heard Wolf sound so cold. "You seem familiar Panther, you're too young to have trained with us and I don't remember any assignments with a soldier named Panther. I do however, remember training with and providing back up for a spy by the name of Cub. The funny thing is that Cub died almost a year ago on a mission for MI6, in fact I was one of four people who carried his coffin." Alex heard an intake of breath behind him but kept his back turned, "Care to explain how you're alive Cub?"


	6. Chapter 6

Alex turned around slowly to eight faces ranging from shocked to furious, "Nice to see you too Wolf." He said with a slight smile, minutely adjusting his stance, very aware of what was about to happen.

"You fucking bastard!" Wolf roared, launching himself at Alex and sending them both flying to the ground, "We buried you! We mourned you! Do you know what it's like to lose a teammate like that Cub? Ben wouldn't talk for weeks except to give your eulogy, Snake wouldn't let any of us out of his sight for ages he was in such a panic, Viper almost transferred out of the unit because he thought it was his fault you were dead, Eagle had the most ridiculous mood swings on the planet- some days we couldn't get him to smile other days it was like he was on laughing gas! What were you thinking?"

Alex looked up at Wolf's red face and had to work to keep a smile off of his face, the older man had become his brother, his protector and no matter how angry he was it was a dream to be able to see him again.

"It's a really, really long story, maybe we should go inside first." Alex said quietly, hoping he could avoid being pinned down by his teammate while he explained his actions.

Wolf gave a terse nod then noticed his nose for the first time, "What happened to your nose?" he growled, tilting Alex's head to the side to examine it, "Damn it Cub, every time I see you you're bleeding. Snake's going to take a look at that as soon as we get inside, no getting out of it."

Alex couldn't hold it back any more, he was grinning like a fool, "What?" Wolf asked, looking at him as if he had gone off of his rocker.

"I missed you guys."

Wolf shook his head, half fondly, half exasperated, "We missed you too Cub, more than you'll ever know."

Wolf got off of Alex and they both scrambled to their feet and brushed off their uniforms. Alex turned and started to walk towards the hut but Wolf grabbed his arm and pulled him back into a hug, "If you ever do that to us again I will rip you to shreds, understand me?" he growled.

Alex nodded and Wolf released him and walked towards the hut, attempting to ruffle Alex's buzzed hair on the way, "That hair's going to take some getting used to," He said with a rueful grin, "you were so vain about those blond locks of yours that it's weird to see you without them."

Alex trailed after him, rolling his eyes, "Yeah will if you haven't noticed the SAS isn't too big on gorgeous hair, personally I think they're just jealous."

He was almost to the cabin when Eagle stepped in front of him, "You were dead." he said quietly.

Alex stood there frozen, he knew Eagle well enough to know he wasn't going to react as violently as Wolf or Ben but Eagle had always been unpredictable.

Eagle was still staring at him, "We got there just after Ben did, I watched you take your last breath, I took your pulse. You were dead."

Alex hesitated for a second then nodded slowly, "They told me I had no heartbeat when they got to me, it took ten minutes to revive me so yes, I was dead for seventeen minutes."

Eagle looked almost broken for a moment, "I tried to get you to wake up but you wouldn't and I was afraid that what I was doing was hurting you more; you were all cut up."

"Well it's hard to be worse than dead." Alex tried for an ironic grin but it came out as more of a grimace.

Eagle's eyes looked suspiciously wet as he pulled Alex in for his third hug of the day, "I'm glad you're not dead."

Alex laughed a kind of a choked laugh, "Yeah, me too Eagle, me too."

Eagle slowly let go of him with a quivering smile and stepped aside for Viper. The two of them just looked at each other awkwardly for a minute then suddenly Viper blurted out, "I'm sorry!"

Alex looked at him in shock, "_You're_ sorry? For what?"

Viper looked immensely guilty, "I walked right past the room you were in three times without even bothering to look in and when those bastards were grabbing you I tried to shoot them and I hit you and-"

Alex cut him off, "Viper stop, right now. You had no way of knowing that room was where I was, they had everyone else in pretty obvious cells, it was natural to think that's where I would be as well. As for you shooting me, it was an accident and it hit one of them as well. It's not like I've never been shot before Viper, I'm used to it by now."

Viper shook his head almost hysterically, "No, it was my fault, my fault you got captured, my fault you didn't get to a doctor sooner-"

"STOP!" Alex roared, making Viper jump and look at him in shock, "I let myself get captured so don't even try to blame yourself for that-" Viper looked at him in horror. "And at that point I think that it was moving that really got me in the end so that definitely wasn't your fault. There wasn't a single inch of me that wasn't injured somewhere, I got incredibly lucky as it was and I was dead for seventeen minutes. None of this was your fault Viper. It was mine, and it was Scorpia's. That's it."

Viper slowly nodded, looking as if he had just had the weight of the world taken off of his shoulders and Alex pulled him into a quick embrace, "You can hit me if you like, apparently it's very therapeutic." Viper laughed and squeezed his shoulder before moving away from him and leaving Snake standing there.

"If I ever have to see a teammate in as bad of shape as I saw you Cub I don't think I'll survive it." Snake said quietly, making Alex feel guiltier than he had in months, it almost made him want to laugh-only Snake could have that kind of affect on him. "It's impossible that you're alive do you know that? No one can survive wounds like that, you should have been gone days before we found you. I lost literally all faith I had in humanity when I saw you like that- knowing that someone can hurt a kid like that without a second thought almost broke me. I thought I had seen the worst people had to offer, thought that I knew how the world worked then I saw you lying there soaked in your own blood, covered in cuts and burns, bones broken, cold beyond belief before you were even dead. For the love of God Cub your eyes were dead before you were. And now you say that you did it on purpose, that you _knew_ what they were going to do to you and you still let it happen. Why would you do that? Because I honestly don't understand how you can be that careless with your own life." Snake looked at him somberly and Alex felt bizarrely like he had just had a lecture from a parent despite the topic.

"I'm so, so sorry Snake, and I probably don't have an explanation good enough for what I put you through but I do have an explanation; I'll tell you everything- I swear."

Snake considered him for a moment then nodded, "It better be some explanation Cub." He said quietly and pulled him into a gentle, careful hug as if he still saw the broken, hurt boy of eleven months ago.

"Oh it is." Alex said with a dark chuckle, pulling away from Snake and watching him walk into the hut. He sighed and turned slowly towards N-Unit who were staring at him unspeaking.

"Guys I-" He started before Falcon cut him off.

"We've suspected for a while that you worked for MI6 Panther, we don't care about that and we don't care that you were Cub once, to us you're still Panther, our teammate, and nothings going to change that. I have to admit that we're not too pleased about all the injury talk going on or that you ran out of the hut with a broken nose and I suspect that Owl's going to drag you into a full physical any moment now but you don't have to worry about us being angry about any of this unless it gets you hurt again. In which case expect us to track down whoever hurt you and tear them apart."

Owl and Lemur nodded in agreement, smirking lightly at him. "Before we go inside, that Snake guy was talking about people being able to hurt _kids_ like that...how old are you exactly Panther?" Owl asked, peering at him searchingly, looking very much like his namesake for a moment.

Alex grinned at them, "Turning 16 in January. The thirteenth to be exact, so I expect presents." With that he walked inside the hut, leaving his shell shocked teammates outside with their mouths slightly open.

"Did he just say he was 15?" Lemur asked weakly, staring after his teammate in horror.

Falcon nodded slowly, "I think he did Lemur, I think he did."


	7. Chapter 7

**AN: Hey guys! Thank you so much for all the favorites, alerts, and reviews I've gotten for this story, they're all really appreciated! My time line is going to be a little bit skewed because I was having problems with everything making sense, I'm also making it so Alex knew Yassen better, as such Eagle Strike canon has changed, not sure whether Yassen's coming back or not, that might be too many people coming back to life... tell me what you think in the reviews. Anyway enjoy!**

N-Unit walked in to find K-Unit pushing all of the cots together on the far wall except for one where Panther was sitting being examined by Snake, not looking pleased at all. Owl bristled slightly, as much as he didn't mind that his teammate had once had another team, another medic looking after him rubbed him the wrong, it was like the other man thought he couldn't take care of his team properly, something which Owl took great pride in.

In several quick strides he covered the room, "If he's hurt I assure you I can handle it, why don't you help your unit move cots?" Owl ground out, eyes flashing angrily at the Scotsman who glared right back.

Panther sighed in annoyance, "Guys seriously lay off, I'm fine."

Both of them turned in unison towards him, directing their glares on him instead of each other.

"No you are bloody well not-"

"If I know you at all you've been hiding injuries for weeks-"

"You shouldn't even be here, the most strenuous thing you should be doing is physical therapy-"

"I'm fine is Panther talk for, "Don't examine me I've got loads of injuries I don't want you to know about even though I'm unequipped to deal with them on my own."

"I haven't forgotten that time in Peru-"

"Don't think I don't remember Panama-"

"So you'll stay right where you are damn it." They both finished with a fierce growl.

There was silence in the room for a moment before Lemur whispered in horror, "Sweet Jesus, there's two Owls...Panther my paranoid friend, please tell me you have an escape strategy for this."

Panther nodded seriously, "You run, I'll sit still and distract them as long as I can; rendezvous in the woods in forty minutes, if I'm not there within a five minute window get out of there and enlist the help of the Japanese for they've surely got me tied to a bed and are shoving unnecessary pills down my throats."

Lemur nodded just as seriously, "I will do what needs to be done, may I ask why the Japanese?"

"They owe me a favor or ten and they've expressed their disgust in MI6 using me; I've only saved their asses indirectly and they've offered me a reward for it every time as opposed to about half of the major nations of the world who have no reservations about using a fourteen year old as much as they want."

Lemur looked confused, "I thought you said you were fifteen?"

Panther scowled, "Yeah but I "died" two days after my fifteenth birthday, they had been using me for a little over a year before that...You know I was really holding out for a normal birthday this year; my fourteenth I was pretending to be a nerd named Felix to prevent every school child in Britain from being killed by a literal computer virus, my fifteenth I spent being tortured by a terrorist organization, and now that you're all here MI6 definitely knows I'm alive. I'd bet my gun that they'll have me on a mission by the end of next week."

Falcon clenched his jaw, "You're not going."

Panther snorted, "I can say no all I want, they have ways of getting what they want."

Falcon shook his head fiercely, "Not this time Pan, they're going to have to get through us if they want you."

Panther turned pale, "That's exactly what I'm afraid of."

Eagle's face turned bitter and annoyed, "When Cub moved in with us when Ben was on missions they called non stop for three days and he kept saying no. Then one day in the middle of the night the bastards break open our door, shove us in handcuffs and start talking about how easy it would be to drag us off to jail on charges of terrorism and dump Cub in a juvenile detention facility. We were yelling at them and Wolf got loose of the people holding him and I'm pretty sure he almost broke Blunt's nose with the handcuffs still on." Eagle stopped for a moment with a dreamy smile as if caught in a fond memory, "Well Cub's just been quiet this whole time then he just gets this exhausted look in his eyes and he goes, "I thought we were done with this." And walks out with the son of a bitch! For two weeks we try to figure out where the hell he is and what was going on then out of nowhere he shows up in the middle of the night with a broken arm, dislocated shoulder, and a black eye refusing to talk about what happened."

Wolf scowled, "I'm still mad about that Cub."

Panther rolled his eyes, "Oh come on Wolf it was a year and a half ago, let it go already!"

He shook his head angrily, "Maybe I would have except the same thing happened a week later minus us getting handcuffs slapped on us and this time he comes back with his hair dyed black and burns and cuts that definitely came from an explosion all over him."

Panther started to look a little edgy, "As I said, year and a half ago."

Viper laughed, "Yeah but it's been almost non-stop, they left you alone for what was it, a month? After Fox got back then you were _both _gone for almost three weeks."

Ben snorted, "Welcome to the oh so glamorous life of a spy- minimal time off, little to no recovery time, assassins around every corner-"

Panther grinned at him, "Paperwork when you do get back from missions-"

"Bosses that might _actually _work for the devil-"

"Inability to resign-"

"But at least there's excellent dental." They finished together laughing.

Snake rolled his eyes, "You two are bloody mental."

"Comes with the territory." Panther said with a shrug, "When you get chased around by nutters trying to kill you all the time eventually you develop a huge amount of paranoia and a weird sense of humor-what _are _you doing with our beds?"

Eagle smirked, "Fist of all, they're our beds now and if you must know we're making a couch."

Panther blinked, "A...couch?"

"Well yeah, you never told us the whole story with how you ended up in MI6, neither of you ever tell us about your missions, and you have a lot of explaining to do about the last year so we figure we're gong to be here a while; might as well be comfortable you know?"

Panther scowled as K and N-Units climbed on top of the makeshift couch, leaving him sitting on the other bed staring back at them.

"Well get on with it them." Owl said with a mocking grin, cheerfully ignoring his team mate's death glare.

* * *

><p>Wolf wasn't quite sure how he felt about N-Unit. On one hand they seemed to have taken relatively good care of Cub, he was healthier than Wolf had ever seen him and he was far less paranoid than he had been in the time leading up to...well any way they seemed to have done wonders for the usually solemn boy.<p>

On the other hand he didn't like the idea of losing Cub to another team and his change in demeanor could easily be chalked up to MI6's lack of interference in his life the past year. Add that to the fact that he had jumped from being a spy to being a soldier, not a teenager didn't increase Wolf's approval of the situation at all. He shook his head impatiently to clear it, he would make his decision after he heard about how his youngest team member had spent the last year, it would do no one any good to have him jumping to conclusions right now.

Cub made himself comfortable on his cot and ran a hand over his hair, "I had a relatively normal life until a few days before my fourteenth birthday, well, as normal as things can get for me. I lived with my uncle, Ian, and our housekeeper, Jack, because my parents had died in a plane crash when I was a baby. Ian (he didn't like being called Uncle Ian) started teaching me French when I was three so we could go on holiday together and I started karate a little while after that, by the time I was eight I was fluent in French, German, Spanish, and Japanese. I lived my entire life thinking Ian had taught me all this so I could go on holiday with him and learn about the world. I didn't think anything of our hobbies while in the other countries; rifle shooting, mountain climbing, scuba diving, abseiling, snowboarding, BASE jumping, anything and everything you could think of. "

K-Unit exchanged glances, that was normal?

Cub continued, "When I was fourteen my uncle died in what I was told was a car crash and through a weird series of events I ended up at MI6 headquarters. Jack was an american, here with a student visa that had expired ages ago. They told me my uncle was a spy killed on mission and gave me a choice; finish his mission for him or Jack would be deported and I would be put in an orphanage."

Snake looked at him in shock, "That's almost exactly what they did to you with us."  
>Cub nodded bitterly, "Because they knew it would work. Anyway, I agreed and they sent me to train with this horrible SAS unit who called me mean names and threw me into trip wires-"<p>

"Hey I apologized for that!" Wolf objected much to N-Unit's amusement.

"They were horrible, especially the unit leader who was afraid of-"

"Finish that sentence Cub and I'll set Nathan on you the second we get off base."

Cub blanched and Snake leaned over to N-Unit, "Nathan is Eagle's twin brother, they're exactly alike except Eagle is way more disciplined and has more common sense hard as that is to believe."

"Moving right along." Cub said quickly, eyeing Wolf with a healthy amount of trepidation, "I got back from training and they suited me up with gadgets-"

Fox snorted, "Knowing Smithers they either exploded or were so awesome you had to resist playing with them."

Cub sighed nostalgically, "Only thing I miss about MI6, those gadgets. That first time I didn't get anything too explosive, just a gameboy that sent information and let off smoke bombs and some zit cream that ate through metal."

Lemur's jaw dropped, "That's _all_? Panther that's like James Bond levels of cool!"

Cub shook his head, "Those ones honestly weren't Smithers' best work, well I take that back the zit cream was one of the best I've gotten, saved my ass several times; but we usually get cooler stuff than that. Remember your tie and cuff links Ben?"

Fox grinned, "Those were _so _cool! Nothing tops the umbrella though."

Cub smiled, "Very true. Anyway back to the story, I got sent in as Felix, a computer geek, to infiltrate Herod Sayle's organization and see what was going on with the Stormbreaker computers. Long story short the computers had a virus in them that would kill all the school children in Britain, I ended up getting caught towards the end of the mission handcuffed me to a radiator informed me they would torture me in the morning-"

N-Unit stiffened, jaws and fists clenched tight.

"Left me alone, in the morning I managed to get myself thrown into a man of war tank-"

"Wait isn't that those really big jelly fish?" Falcon demanded, fixing the boy with a fierce glare.

He shifted a bit uncomfortably before straightening up again, "Yep. Got out of the tank with the zit cream, harpooned a plane, hijacked it, had the pilot (the man they were going to have torture me) fly me to London, parachuted into the Science Museum, shot the Prime Minister's hand before he could unknowingly activate the virus, got kidnapped by Sayle, tells me he's going to kill me then get picked up by this helicopter, pilot shoots him, turns out to be Yassen-"

All of them bar Ben froze, "Yassen? Wait you don't mean Yassen Gregorovitch do you?" Owl demanded, looking horrified.

Cub smiled, "He really wasn't all that bad, he was friends with my dad, saved my life a couple of times. He was a good man who got mixed up in an awful business when he was younger. He told me once that he wished he could quit but it was hardwired into him, kind of like me."

"But you got away from MI6," Snake reminded him looking shaken up, "and Gregorovitch was an assassin, he _killed _people for money Cub."

Cub shrugged, "I couldn't go back to normal life after MI6, that's why I'm here, and anyway I'm not stupid, I know Yassen killed people he was hired to, I'm not stupid. But the people I'm sent in after have an alarming tendency to drop dead and I don't even get paid, how is that different from him?"

"Pan-"

"Look I don't want to talk about it okay? He was a good man, he was my friend, that's enough for me. So anyway, Yassen shot Sayle, I told him I would kill him for killing my uncle-"

"So this guy killed your uncle and you still like him?" Lemur demanded, looking shocked.

Cub sighed, "It's complicated. He told me this business was for adults, told me to go back to school, that he didn't kill children but you were never too young to die, then flew away. A little while later I got called in to investigate this boarding school that turned out to be replacing these rich problem kids with altered clones of their nutso Headmaster, got caught at the end again, only this time the Headmaster told me his clones had been asking him to show them a human dissection and he informed me that it would interesting to see how long it took before my heart gave out from the pain-"

Wolf and Falcon both shot to their feet, "That son of a bitch!"  
>"That man should be very thankful he's dead-"<p>

"If I ever get a hold of him-"

"If he so much as laid a hand on you I swear to God-"

"Guys!" Cub yelled, "I appreciate the concern but I'd like to get through this sometime this year."

Both of them slowly sank back into their seats, still silently seething.

"Where was I? Oh yeah, I had called MI6 to pick me up but no one came and I eventually resorted to snowboarding down the mountain on an ironing board getting shot at and thanking the deity known as Smithers for my bullet proof snowsuit-"

Wolf scowled, "I saw you at the bottom of the mountain, there was a ridiculous amount of bullets stuck in that thing."

Cub nodded cheerfully, "That was definitely up there with the more useful gadgets. So I snowboarded down the mountain, got hit by a train at the bottom-"

"You got hit by a what?"

Cub plowed over Snake as if he had never heard him, "Got taken to a hospital, met up with Wolf, had to go back up to the school, almost got killed again, got Wolf shot-"

"I've told you a thousand times brat that wasn't your fault." Wolf said in exasperation, Cub just shrugged.

"Killed the crazy Headmaster with a snow mobile, went home and blew up my school's science building. The next one I got sent to Cuba, my two mission partners died, a Russian madman tried to initiate a nuclear war and adopt me, I refused and he shot himself right in front of me, the next one I was on holiday when there was an assassination attempt on my friend's father, I saw Yassen again, we caught up, he offered me a place to stay for a while, a colleague of his stopped by while he was gone, I ended up in a bullring, found Damien Cray's number on the guy's cell phone, I went to the launch of his new game console, the one that came with that "Feathered Serpent" game."

K-Unit looked excited, "That's our favorite game!" Eagle cried happily, "We play it at my flat whenever we get leave, isn't it gre-"

"No." Cub said shortly, suddenly looking haunted, "It's terrible, worst game ever created, put me off of video games for the rest of my life. Well Cray wanted to do what all the other kids were doing and start a nuclear war, when he found out I knew he trapped me in a life sized version of the game; I barely survived."  
>K-Unit looked horrified and Cub shook his head as if clearing away bad memories and continued, "I escaped, Cray kidnapped my friend Sabina, hijacked Air Force One, and threatened to shoot her if I didn't give him the part of his plan I had stolen, Yassen was there and Cray ordered him to shoot me, he refused and tried to fight off Cray but Cray had the advantage. He shot Yassen, we fought, I ended up pushing him out of the plane with a drink cart and he flew into the engine. Not pretty. When I got back to Yassen he was dying, he told me to go to Venice where I would find Scorpia and my destiny-"<p>

Ben sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, "And in one of your Alex moments you decided that nothing could go wrong with finding a ruthless terrorist organization because your dying assassin friend told you to."

Cub shrugged guiltily, "So I ended up in Scorpia, they told me that my father had been one of their best assassins and MI6 had killed him, that I had been lied to about the plane crash. I joined their assassin school, they trained me, my first mission was to kill Mrs. Jones, deputy head of MI6 and the person who shot my father, I failed. I shot to the side of her, I just couldn't kill her and even if I had been able to there was bullet proof glass in the way, then MI6 captured me."

By now everyone but Ben's jaws were hanging down in shock, "You-you joined Scorpia?" Eagle asked weakly, staring at Cub with a hurt expression. Cub kept his eyes level with the floor.

"I'm not proud of it. I was a kid and I made a stupid mistake, I wasn't a kid after that training though, they made sure of that." He said bitterly, looking as if he was caught in horrible memories. "Blunt called a COBRA meeting, I helped them figure out that there was a disease in the school kids' vaccinations, I went back into Scorpia with a tracking device, I killed the woman who told me about my father's death, later on I figured out he was a double agent for MI6, that his initial "death" was faked-"

"Runs in the family doesn't it?" Wolf muttered in annoyance, fixing Cub with a half hearted glare.

"Scorpia blew up the plane he and my mother were on, so the plane story was true after all. I was walking out of MI6 headquarters after finding that out, I just wanted to get home, see Jack and sleep, but as I was stepping off of the curb I got this incredible pain in my chest and fell to the ground. Everyone was screaming, there was blood everywhere and I saw my parents." Cub smiled dreamily, remembering how wonderful that had been, "I had gotten shot by a sniper in the chest."

It was eerily silent for a moment before all hell broke loose.


	8. Chapter 8

**AN: Hey guys, I know it's short but I hope it makes up for that with content :) The next chapter is going to be much longer than this, I pinky promise.**_  
><em>

_It was eerily silent for a moment before all hell broke loose._

"YOU WERE WHAT?" Ben roared angrily as Alex flipped over the back of his cot and started for the window before being hauled back by the neck of his shirt. "AND YOU NEVER THOUGHT TO TELL ME THAT? WHAT IF YOU HAD COMPLICATIONS, WHAT IF SOMEONE HIT YOU IN THE CHEST?"

"In my defense it happened two months before we first met and I didn't really trust you then and by the time I did trust you you had been shot and I didn't see you again for another two months." Alex said nervously, trying to conjure up his unflappable spy face but failing as he looked into his partner's furious eyes.

"Two months?" Ben asked in a deadly quiet voice, "Two-months! AFTER BEING SHOT IN THE CHEST? THAT IS NOT PROPER RECOVERY TIME EVEN FOR MI6 AND YOU KNOW IT!" Ben screamed angrily, releasing Alex and running his hands through his hair, "I knew they were bastards but this?"

"I suppose it would be a bad idea to mention that I actually had another mission in between that one?" Alex asked with a half hysterical chuckle, glancing around at his unit mates who seemed to be frozen in a silent fury.

Falcon's face appeared to be twitching, Alex steeled himself, "Here it comes." he thought to himself, then all at once-

"GOD DAMN IT PANTHER UNITS DON'T KEEP SECRETS FROM EACH OTHER! THE MI6 THING I GET, THE DIFFERENT IDENTITY THING I GET, THIS I DO NOT! IF I EVER, AND I MEAN EVER, FIND OUT YOU'RE KEEPING A SECRET THAT IS DANGEROUS TO YOUR WELL BEING I WILL COME DOWN ON YOU SO HARD THAT I WILL MAKE THE SERGEANT LOOK LIKE A CUTE FIVE YEAR OLD GIRL! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?" He roared, waving his arms around as if he couldn't even express his fury.

Wolf looked like he was about two inches from yelling himself, "Cub I promised myself coming in here that I wasn't going to hit you again so I'm not going to yell because I will freak out and end up punching you. You are going to sit your ass down and explain why you kept this a secret. And don't think that we won't be having a talk about this later." Alex paled a little bit at the thought of what Wolf considered "a talk."

"Panther." Owl said, obviously trying to keep himself calm, "Perhaps I saw this wrong or am misinterpreting it, but please tell me you weren't smiling a minute ago when you were talking about almost dying."

Alex suddenly went stalk still, he hadn't even noticed he had been dong that, he was usually so good at maintaining a safe facial expression that he occasionally forgot to monitor himself. "I-I..it was just- I didn't mean to- I was only..." He glanced from face to horrified face.

"Cub..." Eagle started in a shocked whisper before being unable to finish.

Ben was staring at Alex like he had never seen him before, his mouth moving up and down, unable to speak.

Lemur simply stood up and walked toward his unit mate, pulled him into his arms and murmured in his ear, "I get it Pan, you've been through a lot and it seems like nothing's right anymore but this isn't the way out. I've been there and trust me, what you're thinking about isn't the answer."

Alex nodded shakily in his arms, burying his head in his teammates chest so he wouldn't have to look at the rest of them, "It's been better since I've had you guys, I haven't even considered it in months."

Lemur pulled him a bit closer, "It was the same for me, I used to think about it all the time but then suddenly I kind of started thinking that I couldn't leave you guys. I mean we risk our lives on a daily basis and I'm terrified of losing one of you, I couldn't purposefully hurt you like that."

Alex stayed in Lemur's arms for a few more moments before slowly moving away, "I need to go talk to the Sergeant, I'll explain the rest tomorrow I promise."

Falcon got a hold of himself and nodded in Alex's direction, "Do what you've got to do Pan, but we're having a unit meeting as soon as you get back."

Alex smiled weakly, "Yeah seems like we kind of need one doesn't it?" Then he turned and quickly walked out of the hut and toward's Adrian's cabin.


	9. Chapter 9

"It was bound to come out eventually Alex, I'm actually surprised your secrets lasted this long." Adrian said with a put upon sigh as he handed the shaking boy a cup of coffee.

"Yeah I know, it's just that I wanted to tell them in my own time, not because old friends showed up out of no where and forced it out of me. It was supposed to be my way of telling them that I trust them, really, really trust them." Alex said miserably, downing a gulp of the coffee before wincing and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, "This is disgusting Adrian, when did you brew this?"

The other man raised an eyebrow, "I'll just take it back if you don't want it-"

"No! I mean, um, nah it's fine I need to stay up a while longer, I'll suffer through." He finished, his pride trying to recover from his half admittance of his caffeine addiction. Adrian chuckled and sat down with a groan in a chair facing his friend.

"Well it sounds like it's not really a problem, N-Unit seems accepting and K-Unit hasn't broken any bones yet so I fail to see any problem thus far-"

"They found out about...you know..." Alex said, looking vaguely uncomfortable, eyes darting about and hands squeezing the mug of coffee compulsively.

Adrian stilled, "Ah."

"That wasn't something I was _ever_ going to tell them, how could I? K-Unit's going to get all guilty because they didn't notice when I was with them and Ben's going to be just as bad. I can't see it being much of a problem with N-Unit, they're the ones that fixed me really, but it's not something I wanted to talk about. It's done you know? The other stuff, the MI6 crap, that's always going to be there so I didn't care that I had to talk about that. The other thing though...that's just not important."

Adrian barely withheld a groan, leaned over and slapped Alex in the back of the head.

"Ow! Jesus, what'd I do?"

"You were using the 'I don't have any self-preservation or self-worth' tone again. And you said it's not important."

"But it's not!" Alex objected, leaning back a bit and watching Adrian warily.

"It is Alex, you were thinking about dying, I'm pretty sure that qualifies as important."

Alex just shrugged and went back to slowly sipping his coffee. They sat there in silence for a few more minutes until Alex started fidgeting and staring into his cup again.

"You're brooding again- what's wrong?" Adrian asked, feeling mildly annoyed at MI6, the boy hadn't been this jumpy or miserable in almost nine months.

Alex jumped a bit at the sound of Adrian's voice, "I don't want to talk to them anymore, not about what I was thinking about. Falcon, Lemur and Owl, they'll get it, they know me better than I know myself but K-Unit's going to flip out and be over-protective again and that's not what I need. It was what I needed when I was with them, I needed someone to care, to be protective of me when the rest of the world didn't give a damn whether I lived or died.

It's just that things are different now, I've spent so much time as a soldier who's assumed to be of the proper age to take care of himself, but still depends on his teammates. K-Unit sees me as a teammate and an agent and logically they know that I can take care of myself but they still see me as a fifteen year old boy. N-Unit doesn't, I'm just Pan to them, even after they knew my real age I was just Pan. I'm afraid of losing who I've become if that makes sense.

I'm Panther, I'm Ian Johnson, I'm Alex Rider, and I'm Cub but I'm not a kid who needs someone to take care of him, I'm a soldier. N-Unit saw me at my absolute lowest, when I could barely get out of bed in the morning because I was emotionally dead, and when I tried to distance myself from them so I didn't get hurt again they just reeled me back into reality. But they also saw me make a come back, become strong and fierce and live up to my name. K-Unit didn't see that, and I'm worried that they're only ever going to see me as their kid brother who they need to protect, because if they do they're going to have an awful hard time coming to terms with the fact he doesn't exist anymore. He died eleven months ago in a concrete cell with a knife in his ribs." Alex finished fiercely, looking every inch the dangerous, passionate soldier that Adrian had come to know and care for.

"Good. Hold your ground on that, the last thing you need is to slip back into whatever was going on with you before. Like you said though, K-Unit cares for you, they're going to make whatever adjustments they need to so they don't lose you again- just give them time."

Alex nodded, "I'd better head back over there before they find a way to set fire to the cabin, I don't trust Lemur and Eagle together as far as I could throw them."

Adrian chuckled and stood, taking Alex's cup from his and clasping his hand briefly, "Good luck with them Cub, you're going to need it."

"Gee thanks." Alex said sarcastically but he flashed a small, almost confident grin at his friend before walking out the door and jogging towards his cabin.

Adrian let himself fall back onto his chair with a groan, he had spent a month and a half getting the kid back to a mental state that could be described as half way stable before deciding what he really needed was a unit. Thankfully that gamble had paid off and before today he seemed happy, well adjusted, and popular among his own and other units, and damn it if he was going to let all of that go to waste because of MI-bloody-6.

* * *

><p>Falcon had finally managed to pull his unit away from Wolf and Fox's wary glares and now they were just sitting in a corner trying to figure out where exactly to go from there, finally he spoke, "Alright guys I don't know what's going on with this but we're not losing Pan. I don't care if he's Ian or Alex or Cub or the bloody queen of England, he's not getting transferred back to K-Unit unless he requests it himself and he's sure as hell not going back to MI6."<p>

Owl and Lemur nodded, "He's part of our unit and unit's are family, he's not getting rid of us like it or not." Lemur said with a small, forced grin.

Falcon heaved a sigh and ran a hand through his hair, no matter how calm the other two were acting he knew they were worried as well, if MI6 had enough power to blackmail a teenage boy, pull a unit from active duty, and assign a spy to camp without approval from the SAS how could they stop Panther from being taken if it came down to it?

Suddenly the door swung open and Panther walked in, looking much calmer than he had when he ran out, he even had that trademark hint of a smile and flash of mischief in his eyes that they hadn't seen since K-Unit arrived. Wolf started towards him looking almost worried but Pan just walked right past him and towards them, "Hey guys." He murmured, "We need to talk, walk with me?"

They nodded and easily heaved themselves off the floor where they had been sitting and walking towards the door. Lemur flung an arm easily over Panther's shoulders, "So Kitty Cat, I'm going to have to start calling you Kitten 'cause you're-uh!" Panther had jabbed his hand into Lemur's stomach, leaving him gasping for breath. The rest of the group just kept on walking as if this was perfectly normal.

"Come on Lemur, shake it off, that wasn't even hard by his normal standards." Owl called over his shoulder as Lemur struggled to keep up with them, still wheezing.

K-Unit stared after them in mild shock, "Did I do something to him?" Wolf asked, sounding confused and a little wounded at his teammate's blatant rejection.

Ben shook his head, "Nah, that wasn't Pissed Off Alex, the was I'm-Feeling-Guilty-And-I-Need-To-Get-This-Off-My-Chest Alex."

Wolf nodded uncertainly, still eyeing the retreating figures warily, "What do you think of them?"

Snake eased himself off the bed, "Who, N-Unit?"

Wolf nodded wordlessly and Snake walked over towards him and looked out the doorway at the four figures who were now fake fighting almost playfully, "Well I think they're good for Cub and they seem like decent guys. They kid of remind me of us...but not as horrible."

Eagle spluttered in disagreement, "We are not horrible! We-"

"Bullied a thirteen year old mercilessly because he was forced into our unit weeks after the death of his only living family. Yes of course Eagle, we're the absolute picture of compassion and tolerance." Snake said dryly, walking away from the doorway and rummaging through his bag. "Wolf, we weren't there when he needed us, we weren't the ones who put him back together after everything- don't give me that face, you know it's true- they did. That alone gives me a lot of respect for them, that and the fact that he's happier and healthier than I've ever seen him definitely puts them pretty high in my estimation. I know you don't like it, him having another unit after we spent a year mourning him, but I think that this is where he needs to be."

Viper shook his head, "Wouldn't it be better if he stayed with us though? I mean MI6 obviously knows he's alive just by the fact that we're here, how long is it going to be before they drag him back in? And you have to admit, we have way more experience dealing with his missions than they have, I mean he's always only been a soldier around them, not an agent as well."

Eagle shrugged, "I'm with Snake as much as I hate to say it- he's part of their unit now and he seems pretty damn happy to me; he's a big boy, he can split his time up, it's not like we'll never see him, it's just that he won't be living with us full time anymore."

Snake nodded in agreement, "And it's not like he was with us all the time anyway, he and Ben were always off on missions, and after him being...gone it's probably going to feel like we're seeing him all the time."

Wolf finally walked away from the doorway, "Whatever. Long as the kid's happy I guess." He then flopped down on his cot and closed his eyes, effectively ending the conversation.

Ben smiled inwardly at his old unit leader, Wolf always pretended to be hard as rock but Ben knew for a fact that he was just as confused as the rest of them and hurt that the kid he had thought of as a mixture of brother and son had another family as well. He shook his head slowly, just the fact that Wolf had given up so easily spoke far more than words about how much he cared about Alex. Cared enough to let him go.

Some of the time at least.


	10. Chapter 10

**AN: Hey everyone! I know I already updated once today but this was begging to get out so here it is! Enjoy!**

Panther took his time starting to talk, the rest of his unit didn't mind too much, they were well used to this, whenever he needed to say something important he either spat it out quickly and sarcastically or took ages to form even one word. So they just walked along with him in companionable silence waiting for him to get his thoughts squared away.

"I didn't mean to tell you like this." He finally said, looking exhausted, "Who I am-"

Owl rolled his eyes, "We already knew who you were idiot, Panther, our teammate. Just because your real name isn't Ian doesn't mean you're not Panther."

Lemur nodded agreeably, "You're a moron sometimes you know that Pan?"

Panther shot him a half hearted glare, but he was obviously too pleased for it to have any real sting, "I mean who I was before I came here, how old I am-"

Falcon grinned, "I honestly don't care, all this means is that we have ten times more bragging rights over the other units." He saw the threatening glare on Panther's face and back tracked, "If you ever want to tell them that is."

Panther nodded looking satisfied, "What I'm trying to say is that I wanted to tell you in my own time, not because my old unit and mission partner showed up out of no where and I owed them answers."

Owl looked at him searchingly, "Why would when you tell us matter? You could have told us fifty years from now when we're all old and grey and everyone but Lemur's settled down-"

"Hey!" Lemur yelped indignantly, "What's that supposed to mean?"

Owl patted him on the shoulder consolingly, "Only that you are completely incapable of having longer than a one night stand relationship. Perhaps you whould see someone about that? I've heard there are some very good shrinks around-"

Lemur suddenly leapt forward with no warning, taking Owl down to the ground with them, both of them rolling about, fighting for the upper hand, "Take it back!" Lemur howled, "I'll have you know I've been seeing a girl seriously for the past-" He stopped himself mid sentence, mentally kicking himself.

The rest of his unit had frozen and were staring at him, jaws slightly open- Panther closed his mouth and opened it again, bearing an uncanny resembelence to a fish. "You...have a serious girlfriend?"

Lemur pouted, "Why is that so hard to believe?"

They all looked at him flatly and he grumbled a bit, "Just because I'm better at picking up girls than the rest of you doesn't mean that I'm incapable-"

"Lemur the longest you've ever held a relationship was five days and it ended with you running back into our flat dripping wet with a handprint on your face." Falcon half laughed, still trying to figure out if his team mate was joking or not.

"Hey, Maureen was crazy you know that!" He cried, "She shouldn't even count! And maybe I was traumatized after her, you ever think of that?"

They all continued staring for a moment, then it finally caught up to them and they fell to the ground, howling in laughter.  
>"Hey! Hey! This isn't funny! This isn't funny at all! You're all terrible, horrible team mates who are incapable of feeling mercy or compassion!" Lemur yowled, giving Owl a half hearted kick to the ribs which only made him laugh more.<p>

"You know what, you guys suck!" He said with a pout, "Like a bunch of five year olds-"

Panther finally managed to get up, tears of mirth streaming from his eyes, "Honestly Lemur? This coming from the man who still enjoys finger painting!"

"I will have you know that it's very relaxing and creative!" He objected, glaring as they all dissolved into laughter again.

"Oh my god Lemur, I love you." Owl gasped, clutching his ribs and sitting up, leaning against Falcon in exhaustion, "Seriously though Pan, we don't care so stop all the freak attacks I'm sure you're planning in your head about how you're horrible for not telling us or that you're too dangerous to be around us or some other dramatic crap. You're Panther. That's enough for us."

Panther grinned happily, feeling lighter than he had all day, "Good. I honestly don't think I could handle any more dramatics today, I might explode."

Falcon nodded empathetically, "I hear you. Oh and Pan, Lemur?"

He looked up, suddenly feeling very aprehensive and out of the corner of his eye he saw Lemur react almost the same way.  
>"We'll talk about that...thing...when you're ready, don't feel rushed okay?"<p>

They nodded in relief, then looked back towards the cabin where Ben was standing just outside the door watching them calmly.  
>"We should head back shouldn't we?" Owl asked, looking towards Falcon for a decision.<p>

Falcon deliberated for a moment, "Nah. They've waited this long they can wait a little bit longer. Come on guys, let's go watch J-Unit go over the assault course, I hear that Rat can't get over the second the trip wire and keeps eating it face first into the mud."

The rest of them snorted in amusement and stood up, slowly making their way towards the assault course, stopping occasionally to throw a light hearted punch or kick in the direction of one of their other teammates, only barely aware that they were being watched by the unit they were leaving behind.

* * *

><p>It was an unseasonably sunny day in London, but it didn't seem to penetrate the walls of the Royal and General Bank. The few offices that actually had windows belonged to either low level agents or those high enough on the food chain to throw a fit about the lack of windows and not get fired from it. Alan Blunt didn't really care too much when his higher level agents moved into their new offices with smug looks on their faces, anticipating not feeling clausterphobic all the time. After all, the no windows rule was meant to guard against snipers, if they showed such a blatent wish to be assasinated, who was he to stop them?<p>

All in all Alan Blunt was having a very pleasant day; a covert operation in the Philipines had yielded good results and the threat to national security would be dispensed of as soon as he could find a suitable agent. Of course usually he would consider only two people for the job- Ben Daniels or Alex Rider- but due to unfortunate circumstances beyond his control, Daniels had sustained multiple wounds that left him unable to preform at peak levels for another month, and Rider had been killed almost a year before. To an extent anyway.

Alan almost laughed to himself as he thought about how the boy honestly believed they didn't know about his Machiavellian Manuevre, they were _MI6_ nothing slipped by them. At this very moment they had enough cameras on the fool that he couldn't sneeze without at least three agents or analysists knowing. It would have been easy to drag him back to headquarters as soon as he was stable, but Alan had seen an advantage and decided to take it.

Before his "death" Rider had been growing tired, almost catonic when not in the middle of a situation where action was needed. The boy had been quite good at hiding it from the SAS unit he had moved in with and Alan had felt something akin to pride as he watched the boy's deception grow; he truly had turned into a spectacular agent, perhaps the best they had ever had. But the problem was that when agents lose the will to live it's not something that can be fixed with a few quick visits to a shrink and a bit of vacation time to spend with their family. When an agent loses the will to live they simply stop living, as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Alan had searched for a solution to this for quite some time, Rider's former guardian had been killed, the Harris boy was distanced as soon as he realized the true risks that being a friend to a known MI6 operative presented, and although the boy seemed genuinely happy and safe with the SAS unit it didn't seem to be enough that he would only see them for periods of a week or two at a time with his missions and their deployments to consider.

He had been considering forcing the unit to take enough leave to fix the boy when Rider found his chance in the way only a Rider could. He succeeded in getting himself captured with a tracker and a recording device implanted into his arm and annoyed them long enough to get them to reveal pertinent information to him. The fact that Rider was being tortured was unfortunate and unsavory but with the steady flow of information Alan found his choice to be rather simple- Rider had made his own decision and while unfortunate his death had been unavoidable for quite some time.

It had been a bit of a chore keeping the whole affair from Daniels who was unreasonably protective of his partner in Alan's opinion. The man would have found a way to put a stop to it immediatly which Alan simply couldn't allow to happen, after all, what was the life of one when the lives of many are at stake?

Rider's survival had been a pleasant surprise, as was the news of Sergeant Wyss taking the boy in. The man had helped a number of his soldiers recover from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, perhaps after a few weeks recuperating with Wyss Rider would be sufficiently prepared to resume active status. Then suddenly he had a new name, Ian Johnson (did they expect that to fool anyone?_ Ian Johnson_? Just how stupid were they?) and a new unit that seemed almost obsessive about curing him of his depression. Alan let it happen for a while, he thought it would be amusing to see just what three young soldiers could come up with that legions of therapists and doctors hadn't. But to his amazement, Rider started to show signs of improvement until he was almost unrecognizable as the agent who had wandered around in an almost pathetic haze a few months before.

So Alan had watched his recovery with interest, found the smallest ways each member of the unit could be...convinced to see things his way and as Rider slowly allowed himself to become attached to the men. Alan definately approved, not only would it keep Rider alive and human, it never hurt to give his agents a bit more...incentive to do their jobs properly and promptly.

Alan looked down at the file in his hands one more time and called in his secretary and instructed her to ready a helicopter for him and a few agents to be ready in three hours time. She gave him a brisk nod and walked out the door, the picture of efficiency; Alan smirked, if his secretary's work was up to it's normal standards the helicopter would be ready at least half an hour early. Alex Rider could run and hide all he liked but Alan always knew exactly where to find him and which buttons to push until the boy conformed to his way of seeing things; it had been the same way with his uncle and his father, the Rider men had a sense of duty and family ingrained in them that no other could match.

Alex had been slightly out of his reach for a short while but now Alan wanted him back. And what Alan Blunt, head of MI6 wanted, he got.


	11. Chapter 11

A few hours later N-Unit was slowly making their way back to their cabin, covered in mud and laughing their heads off; Owl had tripped and landed face first in a huge mud puddle and when his team started laughing he pulled Panther in after him. One thing led to another and soon they were all covered in mud, had kitchen duty until the end of time, and were congratulating themselves on a day well spent. K-Unit had barely blinked when they all came in covered in mud, Wolf had just shrugged and informed them that things like this had happened to them all the time with Cub around only usually he just sat back and let it unfold without actually getting himself or his hair messy at all. N-Unit hit the showers and spent a little time grumbling about having to sleep on the floor but before long they were all fast asleep except Alex. He stared up at the ceiling willing himself to sleep but his body knew the nightmares were coming and wouldn't even let him close his eyes.

Just as he was about to resign himself to a sleepless night of staring at the door on "guard duty" it slowly creaked open. He froze, hand slowly slipping down and retrieving the knife strapped to his leg. His eyes adjusted a bit and he realized with a bit of shock that it was Evans, who had awkwardly walked away during the reunions, saying that he was going to let them have their space for a while. He motioned for Alex to come outside and for a moment they both stared at each other until Alex realized that everyone else was asleep, even if he did wake them up there was a possibility that someone would get hurt if Evans was a threat.

"Adrian is going to absolutely kill me." he thought to himself wearily as he slowly rose, snagging another knife and a gun on his way out the door.

Evans was waiting for him about 50 yards from the cabin, leaning against a tree with his arms folded across his chest, he looked a bit awkward, "I'm not sure what to call you." he admitted with a self conscious chuckle, "Some of them call you Panther, some of them call you Cub, Ben calls you Alex, and your file says Ian."

Alex didn't need to ask how exactly he knew what was on his sealed file, he had been out of the business for less than a year, that wasn't long enough to forget what he had learned there- he doubted a century would be enough for that.

Alex shrugged, "Tell me what you want and I'll tell you what to call me."

Evans looked at him thoughtfully, "You're a weird kid, you know that?"

Alex's face closed off, "Weird, yes, kid, no. Your employers made sure of that- I assume that's why you're here?"

A guilty look crossed his face, "I'm sorry, I'm just-"

"Following orders. Trust me, I get it." Alex said, sounding exhausted. "Call me Alex, or Rider if you like. Do I have time to say good-bye or gather a few things?"

Evans shook his head, "I've got most of your weapons in the chopper, you'll be getting a few extras when we get to HQ and whatever weapons you need."

Alex's eyebrows rose, "You mean they're actually going to give me weapons this time around? Did Blunt regain control of his mind while I was gone?"

Evans snorted, "He's calling you in isn't he?"

"So no then. I hope he's prepared for a lot of sarcasm and a few death threats."

Evans paled, "They wanted me to tell you that your lack of respect won't be tolerated anymore, that you were behaving like a child, if you want to be treated like an adult, with weapons privileges, pay, and well..."

"Being in the SAS." Alex said quietly.

"Yeah, then you're going to have to act like an adult."

Alex groaned, "Understandable, but annoying. Riling them up used to be one of the high points of my day."

Evans nodded slightly, "Also, they wanted me to tell you that N and K-Units are going to be providing back up for you and you'll probably see them in a few weeks- no need to wake them up to say good-bye."

Alex looked disgusted, "Of course not, that might raise some objections from people that actually care about me and are trained to break into secure facilities. Come on, I want this done with."

Evans nodded and they walked in silence towards the chopper, just as they were about to take off Evans looked over at Alex, "Look, Rider, I really am sor-"

"Don't waste your breath. I get it, I was expecting it anyway. Could you tell them that I'll be fine though? They're going to freak out when they wake up and I'm not there and you're coming back here I'm assuming."

Evans agreed, "They're going to kill me where I stand for this."

Alex just shrugged and looked out at the camp one last time before closing the door forcefully, "Usually I would make some sort of sarcastic comment or reassure you if I was feeling merciful but it's completely true."

Then he leaned his head back and went to sleep, dreams plagued with yelling, gunfire, and explosions.

* * *

><p>Falcon woke up yawning well before it was a suitable hour to get up and automatically reached his hand over to his right where Panther usually slept to shake him awake. His hand hit an empty sleeping bag. Falcon sat bolt upright, scanning the cabin for his missing teammate.<p>

Just then the agent that Fox had brought with him, walked in, looking like he had gotten no sleep, but Falcon barely acknowledged him as he shook Owl and Lemur awake, Panther wouldn't just wander off while all their nerves where still on edge from his explanations and MI6 talk. He turned around to bark at Evans to do something useful when he noticed that he had woken K-Unit up.

He looked at them solemnly, "I have to talk to you."

Ben paled, "Evans, where's Alex?"

"It- it should only be for two weeks or so and they said it wasn't too dangerous-"

"_Evans, where is he?_" Ben said in a deadly, angry voice, slowly rising to his feet and slightly shaking with rage.

Evans ran a hand through his hair, "I don't know. I got orders to bring him down to headquarters, it was a three hour flight there, he'll be gone by now."

"Fuck!" Wolf roared, slamming his fist into a wall and storming towards the door. Viper grabbed him by the arms and yanked him back in, face tight, trying to calm his own breathing and keep Wolf inside the cabin.

Falcon finally finished computing what was going on and launched himself at Evans who sidestepped gracefully in the way only a spy can, "You bastard!" Falcon roared, "What did you tell them?"

Evans shook his head, eyes darting around in search of an ally or an escape route, neither of which he found, "Nothing. They already knew. I got a phone call telling me to bring him in without alerting anyone, I started to argue and they basically told me that if I didn't do it they would get someone else to and I would never work in the intelligence community again."

Eagle glared fiercely at him, "So you gave up a fifteen year old who just got over PTSD and torture wounds so you could keep your _job_?"

Evans stared at him warily, "They would have blacklisted me, I would have been fair game to any criminal organization that had something against me; I've got a little girl at home, I can't risk her. Rider seems like a good kid but I can't risk my daughter for him."

Lemur attempted to keep glaring at him but wasn't able to, "Fine. What do we do now?"

Wolf sat down heavily, looking as if all the fight had gone out of him. "We wait. Eventually he'll either show up in the middle of the night or '6 will send us in to extract him. Either way we're not going to know where the hell he is for another two weeks."

Ben was pacing, fingers ghosting over the right side of his stomach where there were still bandages and feeling ready to go back and kill the man who shot him again. He had no doubt that if it wasn't for the god damned bullet wound they would have him in the field with Alex; instead he had to sit here useless and worry that the brother he had just gotten back was going to disappear again.

* * *

><p>Alex hesitated at the familiar door of the office, knowing that if he knocked on the door there was no going back...but on the other hand if he didn't they would just drag him back and force him into the office anyway. Eyes deadening slightly with the realization that this was really happening he lifted his hand and tapped lightly on the thick wood door.<p>

"Come in." He heard and although it was muffled Alex stepped back. He _hated _that voice and he had the misfortune of having it feature in every single one of his nightmares. He took a moment to steel himself and walked inside.

"Alex. How good to see you again."


	12. Chapter 12

Alex was leaning his head against his own shoulder, listening to the whir of the helicopter blades and willing himself not to go to sleep yet; his body had waited three days for sleep, it could wait another ten minutes. His mind began to drift and for a few minutes all he could focus on was not making eye contact with the agent sent to accompany him back to MI6 headquarters; the man had asked him multiple times if he was hurt since they had entered the helicopter but Alex had lied each time, all he really wanted to do was get his debriefing done and get back to camp. He definitely wouldn't put it past Blunt to lock him in the bank to "recuperate" without telling his team where he was. Finally the copter landed and Alex shakily jumped out, quickly shaking off the steadying arm of the agent and walking towards the door leading off the roof, he felt a little guilty about being so rude to the man, he had seemed friendly enough, it was just that he couldn't stand the idea of staying any where near MI6 for any extending period of time.

Forty minutes later he found himself in the uncomfortable chair in front of Blunt's desk staring the man down, "You're kidding me right?"

Blunt twitched an eyebrow upwards slightly, but otherwise displayed little emotion, "Kidding Alex? I think not. You have repeatedly denied any injury and since you are in perfect condition and readily available why should I delay in sending you where your skills are so desperately needed?"

Alex was almost shaking in rage, he had barely escaped with his life every single mission they had sent him on, he had literally died less that a year ago and now they wanted to send him on back to back missions?

"Blunt I don't know what you think you're-"

"I'm sorry Alex, that sounded bordering on disrespectful to me, I don't know what kind of atrocious mannerisms you've become accustomed to but let me inform you that they will not be tolerated any longer. I understand that you're lack of a real parent figure has left many areas in your life disturbingly lacking but if you wish to be treated as an adult you need to behave like one. Starting with either reporting your injuries or accepting your assignment immediately."

Alex took a few deep calming breaths, "I apologize sir , it won't happen again. I am injured as a result of my latest assignment and request leave in order to recuperate at Brecon Beacons."

Blunt nodded in approval, "Very good. Request approved."

Alex stood to leave, glaring slightly at the completed debriefing on the desk.

"Oh, and Alex?"

Alex stilled and slowly turned towards him.

"Any further disrespectful attitudes will be responded to with a retraining period and you being reassigned to permanent residence here. Do not make this necessary."

Something inside Alex crumpled and he barely managed a nod of acknowledgement, "Yes sir." He whispered, eyes slowly sliding to the floor.

"Good. Dismissed."

Alex stumbled from the room and towards the helicopter pad, this time accepting the supporting arm of the concerned agent who muttered a quick reassurance in his ear that Alex barely heard. It was simply too much to take, he was slowly bleeding from a wound in his side, consciousness was slowly ebbing, and his only real home had just been threatened. For the first time in nine months, the fragile repair work on the edges of his mind was slowly cracking.

* * *

><p>Wolf was not a happy man, eleven months ago he had lost a teammate and now he was growing more sure by the day that he had lost him again. The only other time Cub had been gone this long without checking in he had turned up broken and dying. For Wolf that was just too big of a coincidence to go unthought of and he saw through the uneasy glances of his team that they felt the same. It was simply too soon. They had just gotten him back, it was too damn soon to be forced to go through this uncertainty all over again.<p>

Wolf breathed a sigh and ran a hand over his face, he never would have admitted it to anyone but he had stared awake for hours the night before Cub and left and just listened to him breathe, just listened to the fact that he had proof that he hadn't completely failed as team leader and a friend. It had been strangely reassuring just listening to the kid breathe and knowing he wasn't asleep yet (things like that don't change, Cub had taken "guard duty" as long as he had known him), knowing that he could turn over and have a conversation with him if he worked up the courage to. But he hadn't. He had stayed silent and let the lull of his proof wash over him until he has sleeping better than he had in almost a year.

He shook his head and looked across the cabin at Eagle who seemed to be trying to cheer up a slightly downtrodden Lemur- Eagle always had been good at cheering people up, even when it was obvious he wasn't at his best himself. Snake was talking in a slow murmur with Falcon who seemed to be looking for any kind of distraction, he had no idea where Owl had gone; probably to talk to Albatross or pick a fight with Sloth, he got on with those two alternately the best and the worst, not counting Owl's own unit. And Wolf? He was no where. He was stuck in that guilty, miserable place he had been in since his youngest team mate had slowly faded away in Fox's arms.

* * *

><p>Alex slowly but surely made his way towards his cabin, it was the middle of the night and he wanted nothing more than to sleep in his own sleeping bag before he was subjected to what was sure to be an exhausting, maddening couple of days. He hesitated at the doorway and took in the sight of his teammates, he had been gone so long that it almost felt painful seeing them all lying there as if no time at all had gone by. Slowly he settled into his sleeping bag and closed his eyes.<p>

He was asleep within minutes.


	13. Chapter 13

Falcon groaned as he opened his eyes to blinding sunlight, it brought on an immediate head ache in adddition to the ache in his muscles from sleeping on the hard floor. Internally he counted to ten, trying to keep himself from an unneeded burst of anger so early; he could tell already that it was just going to be one of those days.

Slowly he rolled over, ready to meet the day with a terrifying glare on his face when he hit something soft on his right side which echoed a small, pain filled moan as he made contact with it.

He froze and sat up, staring at the mass next to him as if unsure if he was seeing things. Slowly he reached over and lifted up the cover of the sleeping bag covering the head and suddenly felt his horrible mood return with a vengeance.

"Shit Pan." he whispered in horror, ghosting his hand over his teammate's very bruised and cut up face. The boy in question breathed in sharply but continued sleeping, twitching slightly under Falcon's hand. His face was unusually troubled and Falcon immediately recognized the signs of the nightmares Panther had been plagued with for months when he first arrived.

Moving carefully and deliberately (he had learned from the first time he had tried to wake Panther up and had ended up with a broken nose) Falcon brought his hand down to Panther's shoulder. "Pan, breathe, you're alright, come on Pan it's not real anymore, wake up."

Panther spasmed slightly, face suddenly etched with pain and panic.

"Panther, listen to me man, you're stronger than them, you know you are. I know you are, come on Pan, you can do it, wake up."

He started gently squeezing his teammate's shoulder, "Pan, don't make me get Owl over here."

Panther seemed to struggle for a moment with an invisible enemy and then-

"Don't you dare."

Falcon sagged in visible relief and grabbed his team mate into a quick, rough hug before he heard a small hiss of pain.

He pulled back hurriedly, "You're hurt."

Panther cocked his eyebrow and Falcon glared slightly, "Other than the obvious I mean. What happened to you? You look like you've been through a meat grinder."

Panther rolled his eyes and spoke in a hoarse voice, "Thank you so much for that swimming recomendation Oh Most High and Esteemed Leader."

Falcon didn't even attempt fake anger, "Pan I'm serious, what happened to you, are you alright?"

Panther grinned a bit loopily at him, "Define alright. I've been shot at, stabbed at, threatened with poison, snakes, stakes, nearly been blown up four times, and was just chased for three days through a jungle with little to no sleep. Personally, I thought it was rather tame but I really would appreciate it if you let me sleep for the next month with no interruptions."

Falcon looked at him worriedly, "Look, don't go to sleep just yet okay? I'm going to wake up Owl and-"

"No! Absolutely not! I'd rather go over to the infirmary, at least they eventually stop mothering you after a while there." Panther said looking paniced and glancing at his still sleeping team mate.

Falcon hesitated then nodded, "Alright, hang on, lemme grab you a coat, they'll have my head if I bring you over there shivering."

Panther rolled his eyes and stood, steadily making his way towards the door. Falcon turned around to grab a sweatshirt out of Panther's bag when he heard from behind him a slurred, "That's wierd."

He spun around just in time to see Panther sway ominously and start plummeting towards the ground.

"Pan!" he yelled, lunging forward and catching him, trying to hold his dead weight upright. He suddenly noticed the large amount of blood in various stages of drying on his friend's side. "Oh shit, shit, shit, shit, shit." he said bordering on hysterically, pressing his hand against the wound in an attempt to stop the bloodflow.

"Falcon?" A tired sounding voice asked from across the room, "What'd ya say?"

"Lemur, wake up Owl, hurry!" he roared, checking Panther's pulse and thanking whoever was up there when he found it beating faintly in his neck. Suddenly he felt a bit of Panther's weight being pulled away from his and he looked up to find Fox easing him into his own arms and starting out the door. Falcon got up and ran after them, barely aware of the yelling and confusion behind him.

"He needs a doctor, not a medic. Blunt usually sends us to Saint Dominic's after a mission, I don't know what either of them were thinking." Fox said, looking unusually pale and worried. "Alex borders on moronic on missions but he usually takes fairly good care of himself when he gets back- this is an all time low for him."

"Thangs Ben." Panther slurred, tucking his head a bit closer into Fox's chest and closing his eyes against the light, "Whys e'ryone pickin' on me today?"

Fox looked down at him with a look that was equal parts fondness, worry, and exasperation, "Because you insist on getting yourself injured every damn mission you go on. I swear I can't trust you as far as the grocery store without getting mugged or attacked by terrorists."

Panther shrugged weakly, "It's a talent."

Fox pulled him closer into his arms as they neared the infirmary, as if anticipating seeing his partner covered in wires and bandages yet again, "That it is but forgive me if I'd rather you not have that particular talent."

Panther nodded, "I'll work on tha'" Then his head lolled over and he was out cold again.


	14. Chapter 14

**AN: Sorry it's so short, I'm trying to find a way to end this story definitively and without making all of you super mad at me or fail my math test. I make no promises about when the next one will be out simply because I'm going to make it totally awesome (yes AVPM fans, that was for you) anyway...on with the chapter!**

Ben was exhausted beyond belief, he had stayed for the past week and a half with Alex, moving obediently when the doctors told him to move from his vigil by his partner's bed, then mechanically moving back once they had left the room. He was stuck in a sort of limbo- unsure if any of this was real, if he was going to wake up any moment now and Alex would still be dead or worse, he would wake up and find that Alex _had _been alive but that he had lost him yet again. N-Unit and K-Unit had both been there for a while, but they had eventually received orders to come back to base so they slowly trickled out, leaving Ben with his thoughts.

For the first couple of days all he had done was pray to whatever god looked out for Alex to continue to do so, after that he had simply slumped into his chair and willed Alex not to give up quite yet.

Overall, it was bearable, keeping watch at his friend's bed, he had done so before after all, and had no doubt that he would do so again. It was when he tossed and turned and almost pulled out the wires attached to him and Ben had to hold him down and call for a nurse that it hurt. It was when he cried out for mercy that it burned. It was when he whispered names that it broke him, "Ian! Jack! Tom, no, don't leave, please don't leave. Wolf? Snake? Eagle? Viper? I'm sorry, I tried I'm sorry! Falcon? Guys please, I'm sorry I lied, I didn't want to!"

But what hurt more than anything was-"Ben! Ben! Please, where are you? It hurts, **_please_** Ben help! Ben!"

He couldn't stand much more of this. He had held Alex's hand as he called for him, wept with him and told him he was there, but it had done no difference and the boy had simply continued to writhe in pain and misery until the nurse sedated him. For hours after he had clutched onto his hand, had eventually fallen asleep with his head in his arms, half sprawled across the hospital bed.

The doctors had tried to order him home, but an MI6 badge and a Glock on your hip do wonders for the power of persuasion. The doctors told him that Alex would wake soon, that his brain was fully functional, his body well enough that he wasn't trying to escape from pain anymore, so by all rights he should be waking up. But Ben knew what this was, he had seen it before.

Alex had given up. Not all the way, he knew Alex well enough to know that if he ever completely gave up on life he could probably stop his heart just by sheer force of will, but something had obviously broken his adopted brother badly enough that he had completely lost faith in his ability to survive. In their profession, if you lose faith in yourself there's simply nothing else for you, after all, the job was completely centered around you. Can _I _get out of here alive, can _I _gather the information required, is this country doing enough for _me_? The relationship between Alex and Ben was almost unheard of in MI6, especially for spies of their caliber.

Ben squeezed Alex's hand again and as always waited in vain for that answering squeeze back, quite honestly Ben didn't know what he was going to do if Alex died. He had lived through that once (if you could call what he had done living) and knew that he didn't have the strength to do that again. K-Unit would survive, it would hurt them of course, to lose a teammate, but they had buried friends before and no doubt were strong enough to do so again. N-Unit seemed closer than any unit Ben had ever seen but they would go on, definitely different than before but they might be stronger than Ben knew himself to be. Before he had lived for his unit and to kill the ones who had murdered the boy he considered his family but now...it simply wasn't an option. He was too much of a coward to take his own life, more likely than not he would do what far too many spies before him had done-wait until his next assignment, collect as much information as possible then get himself killed as painlessly as possible.

He shook his head away from that dreary train of thought and focused on the steady noise of Alex's heart monitor, "Alex come on, I know you can hear me you selfish bastard, wake _up _damn it. Wake up." His words were weak and completely without bite- Alex was many things, selfish was not one of them and sedated as he was Ben had no idea if any of his words were being heard.

"Please Alex. Please wake up."

* * *

><p><strong>Anyone recognize the Game of Shadows reference? Best. Movie. Ever.<strong>


	15. Chapter 15

"He's not awake yet."

"-doctors aren't sure they think-."

"-just a week, Sergeant can't give us-"

"Cub I know-"

"Kid look-"

"We haven't really-"

"Pan come on man-"

"Cub-"

"Panther-"

"Ian-"

"Alex?"

* * *

><p>Alex was drowning. It was fitting perhaps, considering all the times that he had almost died in the water that this be the last thing he ever felt.<p>

Above him he could hear his teammates trying to coax him back into awareness but no matter how hard he strained towards them he could only ever manage to brush the surface of the water with his fingertips. Perhaps if it was just him here it would have been easier but he was fighting against someone who had a death grip on his ankle pulling him down. He spent most of his time just flailing towards the surface but the one time that he did look down what he had seen had frightened him so badly that he hadn't looked down again since.

He had seen himself.

He was tied to the other Alex by a rope around both of their ankles and while he strained for the direction where his teammates called for him, the other Alex pulled towards another surface where he saw Yassen, Ian and his parents staring up at him.

N-unit began talking as well and he pulled even harder than before, desperately trying to get to the top before the other him could break through the barrier below but he knew that for all his fighting they weren't getting anywhere; every time he gained an inch the other him pulled harder and gained two inches and their perverse game of tug of war continued.

He was always so close, so-

* * *

><p>Alex was drowning. It was fitting perhaps, considering all the times that he had almost died in the water that this be the last thing he ever felt.<p>

Above him he could hear his family trying to coax him back to them but no matter how hard he strained towards them he could only ever manage to brush the surface of the water with his fingertips. Perhaps if it was just him here it would have been easier but he was fighting against someone who had a death grip on his ankle, pulling him down patiently. He spent most of his time desperately clambering towards the surface but the one time he did look down what he had seen had frightened him so badly that he hadn't looked down again since.

He had seen himself.

He was tied to the other Alex by a rope around both of their ankles and while he strained for the direction where his family called for him, the other Alex pulled towards another surface where he saw N-Unit, K-Unit, and Ben staring up at him.

Yassen began talking as well and he pulled even harder than before, desperately trying to get to the top before the other him could break the barrier below but he knew for all his fighting they weren't getting anywhere; every time he gained an inch the other him pulled harder and gained two inches and their perverse game of tug of war continued.

He was always so close, so-

* * *

><p>Ben gripped Alex's hand and for an instant he had seen the boy's eyes open slightly.<p>

"Alex?"

Suddenly he burst up in bed with a cry of pain and relief, taking gulps of air like a drowning man who had just reach the surface.

Wolf, who had been leaning back in his chair with only two legs on the ground fell backwards with a shocked yell of, "Fuck!"

But Alex didn't even notice, he threw himself into Ben's shocked arms and gripped on to him tightly, shaking like a leaf. "Ben, I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm-"

Ben carefully covered his mouth and murmured a reassurance to him before looking up at Wolf, "Go get everyone else and find out why the hell the nurse can hear us whispering but not her patient screaming."

Wolf picked himself off the floor still breathing hard from the adrenaline of Alex's sudden wake up. "Right." he muttered, hesitating for a moment before walking towards Alex. "Didn't I tell you not to scare us like that again Cub?" He asked, ruffling Alex's hair with a haggard but relieved look.

Alex slowly looked up at him from the safety of Ben's arms, "Sorry. Please don't leave I don't-"

He cut himself off looking rather embarrassed with himself, he was usually quite self sufficient.

Wolf quickly nodded, sitting in Ben's recently vacated chair with a hint of his first smile in weeks "It'll be funny to see the look on Eagle's face when he sees you awake anyway."

Alex and Ben shot him identical grateful looks and Ben slowly eased him back onto his bed, pulling the covers over him and hitting the call button for the nurse, "Only you could wake up after three weeks of being out cold, freak out Wolf and pull out your IV within two seconds flat."

Alex shrugged, suddenly feeling very sluggish, "It's a talent. But _three weeks_? What the hell?"

Wolf growled in annoyance, "One of your stab wounds (which I'm not pleased about by the way) had traces of poison in it. You got ridiculously lucky that they had the antidote relatively nearby; even with it things were hit and miss."

Alex shook his head, "Poison? Seriously? I wouldn't dare die like that- Way too anticlimactic."

Ben snorted, "And I would kill you if you died this young unless you went out doing something awesome with me, I don't want to be left out."

Wolf looked at them both in disbelief before shaking his head, the angering banter about death just meant that his brothers were alright again and honestly, he could handle a little anger as long as that was the case.

**AN: I hope you liked it! I took a really long time figuring out this chapter and while I'm still not sure how to end the story (I'm horrible at that) I think I like the way this chapter went. Reviews make my day and I'd like to hear how you'd like to see this story end! Thanks for reading! (Also the two middle parts _are _different so if you didn't see it the first time scroll up and take a look!)**


	16. Chapter 16

**AN: Hey guys, sorry this has taken so long! As I said before I was hoping to find a good place to end this but it's just not seeming possible so...who's up for a sequel two chapters from now? It would take place five years later but I'm not telling you the plot yet! Tell me what you think through a PM, review, or owl post (I'm quite partial to the last option. Why yes, I am a Harry Potter fan how did you know?)**

Falcon walked into the hospital room clutching his coffee cup as if it was going to disappear (in his defense Eagle had stolen his last cup only moments before but that's neither here nor there). Ben seemed to have fallen asleep sitting in his chair with his head on Panther's bed using his arms as a pillow again, Wolf was slumped in his chair, barely awake enough to nod at Falcon as he walked in.

"You look like you need this more than I do." Falcon muttered to him, pushing him out of the chair and motioning down the hall. "Machine's full, go wake yourself up."

Wolf nodded and walked out the door leaving Falcon alone with Panther, Ben and his coffee. He was just about to take a sip when Panther whipped his head around and said quite calmly, "Boo."

When asked about it later Falcon would always claim that the unmanly scream that echoed from his lips had been a result of the pain of the hot coffee that had gone flying all over his lap but no one really believed him.

"God damn it Panther!" he roared, torn between trying to ease the burning on his legs and killing his teammate, "I keep telling you not to-"

Falcon suddenly froze and stared at Panther in shock. "Pan?"

This was too much for Ben (who conveniently woke up moments before the spill) and Ian, they were suddenly laughing so hard they could barely breathe but Falcon barely noticed.

"You're awake!" This only caused Ben and Panther to laugh harder, clutching each other, tears of mirth rolling down their faces. Falcon launched himself forward and pulled Panther into a fierce embrace, anger slowly making it's way through the shock.

"You idiot!" He roared, searching for somewhere to smack his unit mate that wouldn't hurt him. "You could have been killed! Why the hell didn't you wake anyone up before you left? And what were you thinking not getting medical attention the second you got back, you'd been _stabbed _for the love of god!"

Ian snorted, "It wouldn't have been a big deal if it wasn't for the poison, I've been way worse off than that before."

Falcon looked about ready to strangle him, "Alex." Panther winced, if Falcon was calling him by his name it meant he was probably about to explode with rage. When real names came up in conversation it usually meant they were in trouble with their leader, the fact that he had just been called Alex not Ian meant he was in some seriously deep shit. "Don't you ever even _think _about telling me that you're alright without medical care when you're that injured. Turn your stubborn pinhead on straight and think about what you would do if it was one of us lying there saying that it was no big deal. You almost _died _do you understand that? They told us to request leave and come down here to say _good bye to our team mate_, do you know how bad that hurts? If I ever, I mean _ever _find out about you doing something that stupid again and not even bothering to care about what it's doing to us I won't be held responsible for what I do to you! Now get some sleep you look like shit."

With that he stormed out, slamming the door behind him and leaving a shell shocked Ben and Ian staring at the door. Ben gave a low whistle and Ian mumbled an almost incomprehensible "Shut up." Before pulling his blanket up over his shoulders and settling himself down to take a quick nap. Ian was many things- crazy enough to annoy Falcon when he was this angry was not one of them.


	17. Chapter 17

**AN: This takes place about a month and a half after the last chapter, Alex is (obviously) out of the hospital and has been on leave for about a week and a half during which his team mates have no idea what he's been doing, this is kind of a return to normalcy chapter (well normal for Alex)**

* * *

><p>"Alex!"<p>

Ben looked very close to a panic attack, eyes darting madly between Alex and the rock he was currently clinging (due to an unfortunate series of events that concluded with him being thrown off a cliff while he was on leave), arms splayed out as if to stop- oh there they were. N and K-Units skidded to a halt just behind Ben, staring at Alex with almost the same expression as the older spy.

"Cub!"

"Pan!"

Alex smiled sheepishly at them, trying to keep his physical discomfort from showing, "How's it hanging?"

There was a moment of disbelieving silence before Ben ground his teeth so loudly that the retainer wearing ten year old boy inside of Alex winced, thinking of long term damage, crooked teeth and painful braces. "This is not the time for one of your stupid puns-"

"I thought you liked my puns!"

"How did you even get over there?"

"Well that's a funny sto-"

"Shut up I don't want to hear it."

"But you just said-"

"Rhetorical question Alex, ever heard of it?"

"Must you interr-"

"If you insist on being a moron then yes!"

"For all you know I might have important information for you!"

They all stood waiting and Alex's mouth twisted up a bit.

"I have a strong dislike for chefs stemming from an incident when I was five involving puffer-fish liver, an enemy of Ian's and-"

"I fail to see how this related at all to getting you down!"

"Hey I promised importance, not relevance!"

"I swear to god Alex, as soon as you're on the ground..."

"You need to work on your evil glower, I'd be happy to give you pointers."

"Shut it Rider!"

"But I really must-"

"I said shut it!"

Ben glowered angrily (and apparently inadequately) at Alex again as he tried to figure out a way to get his friend down without killing everyone involved in the process.

"You know maybe if all of you formed a sort of a human ladder-"

"If you don't have something useful to say find a way to control yourself!"

Alex shrugged, "Just a suggestion." Then he maneuvered himself slightly sideways on the rock he was clinging to on the cliff face as his friends on the ledge about fifteen feet below him and ten feet to the left looked on.

"I honestly don't know how you get yourself into these situations." Owl said grimly, surveying the seventy foot drop into rocky water with something akin to awe.

Alex shrugged again, looking quite unbothered with the whole ordeal, "It's a skill."

Ben muttered a few words under his breath about illegitimate children, life threatening situations and inappropriate relations between mother and son.

"What exactly is your back up plan for this Cub?" Viper asked, looking warily at his fuming unit chief who was currently glaring daggers at his youngest team mate.

Said teammate shifted a bit uncomfortably at Viper's words, "Well you see..."

"Cub!" barked Wolf, who seemed to be turning a rather brilliant maroon color, "Start talking or I climb over there and kick your skinny ass off that cliff myself!"

Alex looked mildly amused but decided that his best option was to obey one of his unit leaders just this one time, "Most of the time I have some sort of gadget, weapon, warning, or enemy to annoy but I seem to have gotten myself into a bit of a bind. They chucked me over after confiscating all my weapons-yes Ben even the wire disguised as my hair- and as such I have no advantage at all and it's rather difficult to annoy a cliff into making a mistake. Stir and bake at 350 degrees..."

"You have no plan." Falcon said flatly, looking resigned to his team mate's terrible luck.

"Sorry!" Alex chimed with a grin, not looking at all remorseful, instead choosing to look down at the water churning below him.

"What were you going to do if none of showed up?" asked a bewildered Eagle who was still in denial that his conniving friend had absolutely no back up plan.

"I've been up here for twenty nine minutes and forty two seconds according to the sun's position-"

"That's incredible, where'd you learn to tell time that accurately just from the sun?"

"And the wristwatch currently situated on my right arm."

"Oh."

"So you're a lefty?"

"No, I just like people to think that. Now as I was saying I've been up here for twenty nine minutes and fifty four seconds, and according to the tide charts that I memorized during my brief hospital stint five days ago-"

"Your what_!_?"

"I have come to the conclusion that the tide will be at optimal level for my purpose right about...now."

With that Alex let go, twisting in mid air and disappearing into the churning water below them, the last thing he heard before he disappeared beneath the waves was a faint, yet obviously enraged, "Alexander Johnathon Rid-"

As he struggled with the heavy clothes weighing him down and the darkness aproaching just beyond the edges of vision all he could think was, "Full name; definitely not a good sign."

Seventy feet above the water line two slightly terrified SAS units would have to agree with him.


	18. Chapter 18

Alex lay on the edge of the small beach, coughing up water weakly and staring down at the sand some what miserably; he had somehow managed to get to shore ten minutes ago and this had been the extent of his activities since then. He hated drowning.

A small, less dramatic voice in his head muttered about him not _technically _drowning but he silenced it and went on moaning about his too often repeated hatred of water involved death. After a good fifteen minutes of staying in this position his survival skills took over and he clambered to his feet and took stock of his situation.

He was physically and mentally exhausted from the stress of hanging from a cliff, falling 65.8 feet (according to his usually accurate calculations), and nearly drowning _again_. He hated drowning.

Before he could suck himself into this annoyed line of thought again he realized that in the distance he could see a ridiculously large cliff face and with a slight bit of disbelief he realized that he had somehow managed to end up on a beach about a mile from where he went into the water.

After a few minutes of staring in shock and disgust at just how far away he would have to walk through the woods that bordered the tiny beach he had washed up on, for undoubtedly his friends were still near to the cliff searching the water for a sign that his devil's luck had held he ghosted his hands over his body in a quick inventory check. One questionably fractured rib, bruises on the bottoms of feet from water entrance, alarming cough that was probably a side effect of the low water and air temperature, and a large bump on his head from where he had hit his head and blacked out moments after he had landed in the water.

He grinned- all in all it wasn't a bad terribly bad situation compared to what could have happened. Taking a moment to thank whoever was looking out for him he stepped off the beach and into the forest, perhaps, just this one time he would get back to his friends with no further problems and they would go back to Ben's apartment where warm beer and cold pizza awaited them. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but Alex felt like he was having a pretty good day.

**AN: And...fin! Thanks for sticking with me so long you guys, you've been incredible! _If I Should Die Before I Wake _is officially finished but don't worry, I've got a sequel in the works that takes place five years from the end of this story! I hope you've enjoyed reading _IISDBIW _as much as I've enjoyed writing it! **

**Stay awesome-**

**Kat**


End file.
